


orem is a space wizard and teaches ket how to use magic

by styyxx



Category: Critical Hit (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Illustrated, M/M, Space Eladrin, should still be enjoyable if you don't like star wars!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-03 11:25:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11531229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/styyxx/pseuds/styyxx
Summary: After the Jedi Civil War, Ket receives a request to transport a strange group of passengers across the Outer Rim.Also, Torq is a Wookiee.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i really love star wars, and i really love critical hit, so i decided to work on a quick fic to try and rid me of this weird writers block that has been preventing me from writing my other crithit fic. this won't be too long, and i'm hoping to have it finished by the end of the week
> 
> if youre a star wars fan – ive taken a lot of liberties with this AU, but it’s vaguely set after the jedi civil war, during the dark wars, and very vaguely inspired by some of the events of knights of the old republic 2
> 
> if youre not a star wars fan – i’m so sorry. this should still be enjoyable, especially if you like ketorem. i'd say the only things you need to know are that czerka corporation is a big bad company – think star wars’ salamander’s coil – and that this is set at a time where jedi are pretty rare, since the sith are eradicating them (way before any of the star wars movies!)
> 
> also yes, i did just write eladrin into the star wars universe. please don't tell george lucas (again, if youre a fan, I basically made them into miraluka)

Ket H’zard had worked for Bao Bel-Bina for most of his life. It was a tough job, trying to compete against a company like Czerka Corporation, but it made enough money to survive, and he still had hopes of one day gathering enough credits to be able to move his siblings into a nicer planet. Dantooine, maybe, or even Coruscant or Alderaan, if they were lucky. Somewhere far away from the many dangers Tatooine provided. Ket had upset the Hutts one too many times, and it was starting to be risky to show his face in most of the settlements.

Bao Bel-Bina was the owner of a small transportation company that tried to charge less than Czerka Corp.. She kept a fleet of only a handful of ships, mostly small crafts, and a pilot for each. She’d created it mostly as a more ethical alternative to Czerka, but she still had to pay them port space in Tatooine, which meant that there was not much left to pay her employees. They didn’t get many clients either – Czerka liked to threaten that passengers flying with Bel-Bina were more likely to get caught in unexpected flight accidents.

One time, Bel-Bina had come to Ket, off-record, to ask him to take some passengers to Nar Shaddaa, and then, possibly, to a few more other stops, across the Outer Rim. He’d been surprised by the request, but hadn’t found it too odd – it wouldn’t be the first time Ket had flown passengers with bounties on their heads. He was a skilled pilot, and illegal jobs usually meant more credits. He had been surprised, however, when he’d walked into his ship to find a group consisting of a large wookiee with a big axe behind his back, a human man with a large, robotic arm, a green-skinned twi’lek girl, and what Ket assumed was an eladrin, despite never having seen one.

He had now come to know them as Torq, Randus, Trelle and Orem. He didn’t talk much to them at first, but they weren’t very careful with keeping information secret, so he’d quickly learned their names, but not the reason behind the secretive mission.

Torq, the wookiee, had apparently been saved by Orem, the eladrin, once, in a life or death situation. He’d declared he owed Orem a life debt, and had followed him ever since, despite Orem’s complaints that it was not necessary for him to pledge his life.

Randus would look like your run-of-the-mill human, dark hair, a little on the short side, if his right arm wasn’t oversized and robotic. He was an engineer with a penchant for creating and improving droids, and seemed to have created a small astromech of his own, who he seemed to call simply _assistant_.

Trelle, the twi’lek, was the member of the crew that seemed to spend the least amount of time around Ket, who usually liked to stay in the pilot cabin, even when the rest of the crew wasn’t in the ship. When she did come around, though, it was usually to get involved in an argument about where they should go next, usually with Orem.

Orem, with his pale skin, long, blonde hair, pointy ears and big, solid eyes, was, pretty obviously, the main reason for the big secrecy surrounding their mission, whatever it was. Even if he wasn’t an eladrin – a race of Force-sensitive beings – it was clear he was a Jedi by the way he carried himself, talked, and dressed, when there was no need to hide his identity. Ket didn’t see much of him either, at first. He didn’t seem to be in a very good mood, most of the times.

Probably, Ket thought, because it was a known fact that eladrin were mostly extinct, since the Sith had eradicated them on their own home planet, as part of their purge of the Jedi. Orem was, likely, one of the last hundreds of individuals alive. The galaxy was a big place, but eladrin were known to stick to their home planet, and most of them never touched a spaceship their entire lives. They’d had little chance of assuring survival.

Orem didn’t talk to him much, either. But he stared, sometimes. He would look at Ket with his big eyes and just watch him, sometimes. Ket didn’t know why, if it was suspicion, plain distaste, or if the eladrin, maybe, found him attractive.

But Ket just did what his grandma had told him, when he was little, he should always do while idling around, especially if there happened to be a Force user around; he imagined himself playing a card game, in his head, focusing on the strategy and picturing the cards, keeping track of the bets and protecting any thoughts that actually mattered from any intruding minds.

 

* * *

 

"You like gambling?” Orem asked him, sitting next to him on the co-pilot’s seat and watching the blue glow of hyperspace surrounding the cabin.

Ket raised an eyebrow, glancing at the eladrin.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Do you?”

Orem, for once, wasn’t looking at him.

“The Jedi Order doesn’t encourage gambling.”

“I thought the Jedi Order was mostly destroyed?” Ket asked, not exactly trying to provoke Orem, but maybe slightly annoyed by the comment. “I don’t think what they encourage really matters, anymore.”

Orem finally looked at him with a frown, falling into silence, obviously bothered by the remark. He didn’t reply, looking back at the window after a second and continuing to watch the signs of the immense speed they were flying at.

“I. Don’t know any games.” He said, after a while.

Ket was somewhat surprised by the answer. He smiled and nodded, standing up to calibrate their route and make sure they were going to leave hyperspace at the right time.

“Maybe I’ll teach you, some day.”

 

* * *

 

It had happened a few weeks into their trip, in a small port in one of the planets of the Telos system, one of their last stops of their journey across the Outer Rim. A couple more stops like this, and Ket would be free to return to Tatooine, back to his family and to his routine.

Ket had waited for a few hours aboard his ship, and the crew had returned, looking disheartened, as they usually did whenever they got back from their planet surveys, whatever their goal was. It was time for Ket to, as usual, leave the ship himself, to finalize their stay at the port and make sure his passengers hadn’t been identified.

It was then that he was approached by a hooded devaronian, who greeted him far enough from the ship that the crew wouldn’t be able to see him, much less hear him.

“ _Ket H’zard_ ,” He said, with a smile that sent shivers down Ket’s spine. “You do well to shield your mind.”

Ket smiled back, cautious. He was still counting cards in his mind, playing a game of Sabacc against himself.

The devaronian introduced himself as _Asmodeus_ , but was careful not to mention his allegiance, though it wasn’t hard to guess he was a Sith. He mentioned he was surprised by Ket’s ability to shield his mind from Force users, and made him a proposition: Ket would continue to travel with Orem Rivendorn and his companions, instead of returning to Tatooine, and, at a later date, he would encounter Asmodeus again, and simply tell him about all the places they had travelled to, and whether or not their party had grown in size. In exchange, the devaronian would offer him credits, more than what Ket needed to quit his job working for Bao Bel-Bina, and finally move his siblings to a more hospitable planet. Two thousand now, and five thousand more once the job was done.

Ket didn’t fancy himself a spy, in any way. However, this man, somehow, already knew his name, and where he hailed from, and Orem’s name, and that they were travelling. It wasn’t far-fetched to imagine him easily finding out about Ket’s siblings, and maybe even punishing them, a consequence of Ket’s lack of cooperation.

It wasn’t like he had to tell the man all of his travelling companions’ secrets, anyway. If Asmodeus couldn’t read his mind, either, then there were things Ket could keep for himself.

He had taken the money, gone back to the ship, and that night, later, when they were travelling through hyperspace again, he’d walked to the ship’s common area and announced that, if the party still wanted him around, he would like to accompany them throughout the rest of their journey, at no charge.

The crew had been happy about this apparent change of heart. So far, Ket had seemed uninterested in whatever their purpose for this trip was. Now, Torq let out a pleased howl (Ket could, somehow, understand that it meant something about how he had always known Ket was a good guy), Randus popped his head out of the cargo hold to smile at him and let him know all help was appreciated, and Trelle threw her arms around his neck in an awkward hug, apologizing for not having talked to him much so far and promising to let him know what this trip was all about, soon enough.

Orem stayed mostly quiet, trying not to let his surprise show on his face, but it was clear he hadn’t expected this development. When Ket looked at him, Orem smiled, softly, and said, “You’re going to have to teach me one of those games, now.”

Ket smiled back, feeling maybe a little guilty about the actual motive behind his sudden change of heart, and made his way back to the flight chamber.

 

* * *

 

“Do you understand it when Torq speaks?”

Orem had started to come sit next to him, on the co-pilot’s seat, more often, ever since their stop at Telos. It felt like, now that Ket was a permanent addition to their team, the others were more interested in communicating with him.

Ket hummed, turning towards the eladrin and thinking about the answer.

It was something that surprised him, actually, how easily he could understand what others meant to say, even when he didn’t speak their languages.

“I wouldn’t say I understand what he’s saying. I don’t know a word of shyriiwook. But, I think I understand what he means? Part of the time, at least.”

Orem nodded, seemingly unsurprised by the answer.

“Torq is a particularly expressive wookiee,” Orem responded, his big turquoise eyes boring into Ket’s. “Is it like this with most alien languages, or just with him?”

“It’s not just Torq,” Ket turned away from Orem. It was harder to shield his mind, to focus on the card games permanently playing in his head, when having a conversation, and harder yet when Orem’s eyes were on him like that. “It’s always been like this, ever since I can remember. I’m just… Good at talking, I think. That’s always been my thing.”

Orem was still staring at him. He stayed silent for a whole minute, as Ket fiddled unnecessarily with some controls in his dashboard.

“I’m like that too,” He finally said, leaning back in his seat.

“…What?”

“The language thing. I mean, I didn’t realize it for a long time. Not a lot of outworlders came by our planet,” Orem said. He was not looking at Ket anymore, and instead was playing with his long hair, maybe as his own way to distract himself from the pain that came from thinking of his own planet, now destroyed. Ket knew Jedi weren’t supposed to focus on emotional pain – it was one of the easiest ways to fall to the Dark Side, or something. But it couldn’t be easy on Orem, knowing he could be one of the last eladrin alive in the galaxy. “But, once I left to study at the Jedi Enclave, in Dantooine, I started noticing it. Sometimes I would overhear conversations in other languages, between other Padawan, and I didn’t understand what they were saying, but… I knew what they were talking about, somehow.”

“I’m sorry, Orem. About your planet,” Ket said.

Orem’s hand froze where it was curling a strand of his hair, and he let it fall onto his knee.

“It’s a Force-sensitive thing, you know?” He said, turning back towards Ket again. “Comprehending different languages, like that. It shows a great connection with the Force.”

Ket knew. Ket thought about his grandma, who used to live with him, when he was a small boy. How her eyes were big and solid, like Orem’s, and how she would make things levitate, sometimes, and he and Charlotte would try to grab them mid-air.

“I’m not, though,” He stated. “Force-sensitive.”

Orem tilted his head to the side, frowning lightly.

“Are you sure?”

Ket thought about his grandma again. How she’d told him and Charlotte that being a Jedi was going to start being dangerous soon, and that maybe, for their sake, it was better if nobody found out if sometimes they could understand each other by just exchanging a look, or if Ket was unusually good at luck games, or if Charlotte could always feel when sandstorms were coming, even before the moist farmers came to their village to warn them.

“Yes,” Ket replied, avoiding Orem’s eyes. “I’m sure.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some more star wars jargon explanation i should have added in the first chapter:
> 
> pazaak and sabacc are card games  
> devaronians are a species of aliens - they're humanoid, have horns, pointy ears and usually are bald and have reddish skin 
> 
> if there's other lore stuff you wanna ask about, feel free to! i love talking about star wars  
> also, this chapter is illustrated - i hope that's enjoyable as well

Slowly, through bits of conversation here and there, Ket had come to realize the main motive for his companions’ journey.

They were looking for someone – a specific person, and judging by how they always picked their next locations based on the strength of particular Force signals coming from certain sites, that person was a Jedi. Ket continued to stay inside their ship, during the party’s outings. Sometimes Randus or Torq would stay with him, but Trelle and Orem always left, and were always the ones who looked the most disheartened when they returned empty handed from their surveys. Sometimes Trelle looked angry, and sometimes they both shared long, nervous looks, like they were both starting to fear their quest was pointless, but neither of them was willing to admit it.

The biggest clue Ket had was a name. He knew the Jedi they were searching for was a woman – they would sometimes say that _she_ could be wherever they were going next. But one time, only once, when they’d landed on a small island in a beachy planet that had emitted particularly intense Force readings on Randus’s Force surveying device, Trelle had ran down the landing board calling for _Kammis_ , and had returned half an hour later, alone, with red, puffy eyes. She’d made her way to the crew quarters without looking at anyone, and Orem had returned shortly after, looking disappointed and resigned, and had simply told Ket to start readying the ship for departure.

 

* * *

 

“I’ve been helping you for a while now,” Ket stated. He was sitting comfortably in the pilot’s seat, and Orem was standing behind him, leaning against the back of the co-pilot’s seat.

“Yes, you have,” He agreed, slightly confused. “And we thank you for it.”

Ket sighed. He had considered confronting Orem about this before, but it was harder than he’d imagined it to be.

“I think… I think I deserve to know what we’re doing here,” He said, keeping his eyes on the dashboard and fiddling with a lever that didn’t need to be fiddled with. “Who are we looking for? Who’s – _Kammis?_ ”

There was a pause. Orem seemed reluctant to answer the questions.

“I’ll explain everything,” He said, quietly, after some thought. “As long as I, too, get to ask a question afterwards.”

Ket raised an eyebrow, glancing back at Orem for a moment before looking back at the dashboard – as usual, he continued to count cards in his mind. “Alright.”

“Kammis is my sister,” Orem started. That explained things. “She wasn’t back in our planet, when the massacre happened. So, she – she might be still alive.”

It sounded like, maybe, Orem was clinging too hard to this hypothesis. He sounded almost defensive. Ket admired it, somehow – he was too pessimistic to be able to hang on to a small hope like that, would rather accept defeat early on and not risk suffering through a big disappointment once the hope became too small to cling to. He decided not to mention any of this.

“Do you have any clues on her whereabouts, or are we just blindly throwing ourselves at any planet that gives us a higher than usual Force reading?” Ket asked. Then, thinking there was a chance he sounded too accusing, he added, in a softer tone, “When’s the last time anyone saw her?”

“It was a while ago, before the war started,” Orem said, with a sigh. “The last person to see her was Trelle. Kammis was – they,“ He mumbled, trying to find the right words. “They were lovers. And that’s against the Code, of course, so… She – she broke up with Trelle, and that’s the last she was seen.”

There was another pause. Ket leaned back against the chair and turned to look at Orem. Ket couldn’t tell where his big eyes were focused on, but he seemed vulnerable in that moment, smaller than he usually did, and the airs of Jedi superiority that typically accompanied him were nowhere to be found. He sighed again, and then seemed to will that rare image of a lost, young eladrin away, replacing it with a smug smile and turning to Ket.

“My turn now?” He asked, lifting one hand to rest his chin on.

Ket let the moment pass and rolled his eyes with an exaggerated sigh.

“Fine.”

Orem didn’t even need to think of the question he wanted to ask.

“Who taught you how to protect your mind from Force users like that?”

Ket wasn’t surprised whatsoever. That was exactly the question he had expected, and he forced himself to stay relaxed and to suppress the annoyed groan that threatened to escape his lips.

“It was my grandma,” He admitted.

Orem’s eyebrows shot up, and he seemed surprised for a second.

“Was she a Jedi?”

“Yes. She was, before she left the Order,” Ket explained. “She hated the Code.”

Orem seemed even more surprised at this. He left his place leaning against the back of the other seat and moved to sit next to Ket, on the co-pilot’s seat, looking at him with poorly concealed enthusiasm.

“She left the Order? Where did she go?” He bit his lower lip before daring to ask, “Is she – alive?”

Ket kept his eyes on the dashboard, covering up his grief with card games in his head.

“She was an eladrin. We never saw her again, after the massacre.”

Orem was polite enough not to immediately comment on Ket’s eladrin heritage. Ket had, basically, just revealed that there was, in fact, a high chance of him being Force sensitive, like Orem had suspected.

“Oh…” He looked away, carefully picking his words. “I’m. Sorry, Ket.”

Ket sighed. Orem had lost his entire planet to the same massacre – it felt wrong to accept his pity, when he had it so much worse.

“It’s fine.”

There was another long pause, where Orem seemed to consider whether what he wanted to ask next was appropriate or not.

“You said… _We_? You and who else?” He asked, tentatively.

Ket blinked. He didn’t want to talk about his siblings – it always felt like a dangerous topic to share. They were his biggest weakness, and revealing it was risky and careless. But he remembered Orem’s vulnerable look, just a minute ago, and felt, somewhat, safe, and like maybe sharing this wasn’t that dangerous, if it was with Orem.

“Siblings. Two of them, back in Tatooine. That’s why I got this shitty job,” He continued, a strange adrenaline rush passing through him as he continued to share something that went beyond Orem’s question. “I just want to get them somewhere safe, away from that backwater planet.”

Orem smiled sadly at him, after a few seconds of contemplation.

“You know,” He started, seeming to finally relax as well. “I was suspicious of you at first, and didn’t get why you’d join our mission just like that, without even knowing what it was.” He admitted. Ket tensed up. “But. You’re not a bad guy.”

Ket felt his cheeks heat up, as Orem’s words brought up the memory of a devaronian asking him to spy on this man, who was opening up to him, and who Ket was opening up to, and he felt an immense urge to change the subject. He turned to the eladrin, forcing his smile to look natural and dealing another round of Pazaak in his head, burying those feelings underneath layers of gambling.

“Want me to teach you one of those games, now?”

Orem’s smile widened.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

 

Ket never really dreamed, never had his whole life. His grandma had told him it might be because of his eladrin heritage – eladrin didn’t sleep, only needed to go into a trance to replenish their energies, and while Ket and Charlotte did need to sleep, theirs had always seemed lighter than their friends’, and never haunted by visions of any sort. When Emil had grown up, and they had found out he didn’t dream either, Ket had decided his grandma was right, and hadn’t given the subject any further thought.

That’s why it came as such a shock when his sleep started being plagued by strange visions, at some point of the journey.

Most of them, if not all, involved Asmodeus, the devaronian who had asked him to keep an eye on Orem and the rest of the group. Sometimes, the dreams were just of his horned face, smiling calmly at him. Sometimes, he saw himself again, agreeing to spy on the others – Asmodeus handing him the credits he’d accepted as payment, and them burning his hands as punishment for betraying his friend. Sometimes, he would see the red-skinned man walking leisurely in Tatooine, around his village, watching Charlotte and Emil do their usual chores.

Sometimes, Asmodeus would be right there with him, on the ship, and he would draw a scarlet light-saber and kill the others in cold-blood, and leave Orem for last, and the look of betrayal on the eladrin’s face hurt more than the burn of the Sith’s light-saber would have. Then, Asmodeus would smile at him, and thank him, and hand him more credits than Ket knew what to do with, and Ket would be left alone, with four dead bodies of people who had trusted him.

He always woke up with a start, in his bunk, drenched in cold sweat, and immediately began to counting cards in his head to calm himself down, before Orem could sense his fear from wherever he was meditating in the ship. He let himself focus on every little sound he could hear: the quiet whirr of the hyperdrive; The rhythmical thuds of a hammer hitting a metal plate, probably caused by Randus tinkering with something in the cargo hold; Torq’s low, rumbling snoring, coming from the bunk under Ket’s.

He concentrated on anything but what these nightmares could mean, cleared his mind, and let himself be lulled back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

“Doesn’t it get exhausting?” Orem asked, leaning on the back of the co-pilot’s seat. “Counting cards in your head like that, all the time.”

They had been going through a particularly lengthy part of the journey, and had been travelling in hyperspace for over a week, now. Trelle was the first to show her frustration at being stuck inside a ship for so long, but the others were starting to show signs of cabin sickness as well, now. Orem seemed to have gotten bored of meditating all day, and had been coming over to the cockpit to bother Ket more often.

“No,” Ket replied, slightly annoyed at the question. “It’s pretty much effortless, at this point. And, it’s not like I do it without a reason.”

Orem moved to comfortably sit cross-legged on the co-pilot’s seat.

“You know you don’t have to do that around here, right? Nobody here is Force sensitive.”

Ket gave Orem a look, and Orem scowled.

“ _I’m_ not going to force myself into your mind, if that’s what you’re worried about,” He said, almost offended at the suggestion. “It’s a smart thing to do, if you’re out of the ship and surrounded by people who could use your own mind against you. But here… We’re among – friends.” He said, a slight flush on his cheeks, as if using the word was a minor embarrassment. “You’re safe, here.”

Ket felt his own cheeks heat up, though he hoped it wasn’t as visible on his skin, darker than Orem’s.

“It’s hard to stop,” He said, quietly.

Orem nodded.

“I can imagine. But… You should try it. I think it would help you relax, if you just kept your mind free of tricks.”

Ket felt his mouth dry. He did feel safe – he felt safer with Orem than he should feel, probably, considering _his_ own mission, and what would surely happen to him if the eladrin found out, if he took a peek at Ket’s mind while Ket was distracted and discovered the true reason why Ket had decided to stay with them.

It was a tempting offer, though, a trap hidden behind the promise of relaxation and friendship. Ket wanted to accept it, he wanted to be careless and let his thoughts go unguarded, to believe that Orem wouldn’t try to probe into his mind.

It had been a long time since Ket had _trusted_.

He sighed.

“I’ll think about it.”

 

* * *

 

Eventually, he had started teaching everyone how to play Sabacc.

Torq was, by far, the worst player in the crew. Sometimes, it was clear he was bored, and only partaking in the game to pass the time. He played cards at random, with no strategy whatsoever, but sometimes the others still let him win, when he was annoyed – sometimes, it’s better to just let the wookiee win.

Trelle wasn’t very good at it either – enthusiastic, yes, but she had a bad poker face, and her eyes would widen very obviously when she got a good hand, and sometimes she would groan in annoyance when she was dealt a bad hand.

Randus was slightly better, if only because, occasionally, he would play so absent mindedly that he could surprise the other players with accidental strategies. When his mind was somewhere else and he was playing distractedly, he hid it perfectly when he had good hands, and ended up unintentionally bluffing his way out of bad hands, which Ket found endlessly amusing.

Orem wasn’t great at the game either, so it came as a surprise when, one time, when Ket had left the table to prepare a meal, he suddenly started winning multiple games in a row, looking immensely smug about it and bragging loudly about his superior intellect.

After a few games, when Orem left the table to stretch his legs, Ket could hear Torq howl that it wasn’t fair, and that Orem was clearly using the Force to cheat.

“Wouldn’t that be against the Jedi Code, or something?” Randus asked, scratching his head.

Trelle laughed humorlessly, throwing her cards on the table.

“Apparently, eladrin seem to be _selective_ when it comes to what matters to the Jedi Code, and what doesn’t.”

* * *

 

It was difficult to do, but Ket had slowly began to leave his mind unguarded.

He was playing a game of Pazaak with Orem, in the cockpit. After Ket had confronted him about cheating, Orem had promised not to do it anymore – at least, not by using the Force. He’d promised not to probe Ket’s mind, either, so Ket tentatively emptied his mind of the cacophony of sounds and card games that usually filled it up and, true enough, didn’t feel Orem poking at his brain whatsoever.

He felt exposed, but at the same time, it was like he didn’t feel the need to hide his thoughts around Orem anymore.

Ket won a round, and Orem looked up at him with a determined look.

“I want to train you.” He said, resolutely. “I want to teach you how to use the Force.”

And Ket, still feeling his mind protected from Orem’s, allowed himself to think, for a moment, about his nightmares, of the devaronian wandering around Tatooine, with his eyes on his siblings. He thought of his grandma, telling him that the way of the Force was unsafe, and that him and Charlotte would do good to steer away from it. He thought of how he was bad at aiming a blaster, and how he had never been particularly athletic, and how he really could use a way to protect himself and his siblings. And he thought of how Orem’s big eyes were focused on him, with all that determination, and yet, Orem was being true to his promise, steering away from his mind like he had assured Ket he would.

He took a deep breath.

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> honestly i'll be happy if even one person other than me enjoys this content


End file.
